38 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



from Cape Horn to Bolivia and Brazil, are described in rhap- 

 sodical style. The author talks familiarly of the Patagonian 

 Indians, whom he terms " huge Macropods," whilst the Pampeans 

 are " Longobardi Centaurs," whatever that may mean ; and he 

 sprinkles his pages with sketch-lists of the principal plants and 

 animals, each with a Latin name, thus making a brave show 

 of scientific knowledge. So far, however, as this volume goes, 

 Mr. White's experiences seem to have been confined to the familiar 

 route by steamer and rail from Buenos Ayres to Cordova; thence 

 by rail and diligence to Mendoza ; with a few excursions in those 

 neighbourhoods. To make amends for his own want of experience, 

 he appears to have jotted down everything that he was told, and 

 being somewhat deficient in critical faculty, he gives us a good 

 many so-called " facts," which render the book highly amusing ; 

 it is indeed a long time since we have so thoroughly enjoyed 

 a work on South America. Many passages might be cited in 

 illustration of this, but as we are noticing the work on its 

 Natural History merits, we will endeavour to confine ourselves to 

 that topic. 



The following extract will convey some much-needed infor- 

 mation, and will at the same time give a favourable impression of 

 the author's style : — 



"The Museum of Buenos Aires is doubtless rich, perhaps richer than 

 any other, in palaeologic edentate osteology : those huge monsters which 

 once lazily trod its (sic) surface, are brought from their oozy tombs by the 

 wand of science, to astonish mankind by their massiveness and uncouth 

 forms, to attest zoologic degeneracy and themselves to witness how the 

 mighty have fallen in the puny pigmy forms which now surround us. 

 Fancy with what contempt must the huge Glyptodon clavipes look down 

 upon his tiny modern representatives the Dasyptts peba or the still smaller 

 Chlamydophorus truiicatus ; the gigantic Megatherium, twenty feet long, 

 and with bones more massive than an elephant, or his ancient brother the 

 Mylodon somewhat less ponderous, with what a derisive smile must they 

 not view the efforts of their feeble modern vicar (!) the Bradypus tridactylus: 

 and so on of the rest." 



Worthy of the foregoing is the description of the presiding 

 genius of this Museum : — 



" The stranger would hardly expect to find buried here amongst 

 his ponderous tomes, one of Europe's savans : yet so it is, the curator 

 Dr. Hermann Burmeister, whose twenty years' residence in the Argentine 



